Facebook today announced a new version “designed to reduce clutter and focus more on stories from the people you care about.”

Users will see all the stories featured in their News Feed before, but with a new look. The company has completely rebuilt each story to be “much more vibrant and colorful and highlight the content that your friends are sharing.” Photos, news articles, maps and events “all look brighter and more beautiful,” according to Facebook.

To make sure users see all the stories their want to see, Facebook is introducing several new feeds to explore in addition to the same News Feed offered today:

– All Friends – a feed that shows you everything your friends are sharing
– Photos – a feed with nothing but photos from your friends and the Pages you like
– Music – a feed with posts about the music you listen to
– Following – a feed with the latest news from the Pages you like and the people you follow

With the new design, now Facebook has the same look and feel on mobile, tablet and web. For example, the left-hand menu is accessible anywhere you go on Facebook. You also have a way to jump right to the top of News Feed whenever new stories come in.

Facebook will be rolling out the new design slowly over the coming weeks on web and mobile. User who would like to get it early can visit www.facebook.com/newsfeed and add their names to the waiting list.

These design updates will be available on your iPhone and iPad in the coming weeks and to Android sometime after Facebook is able to sift through all of the fragmentation. Have a nice wait, Andy. Play with your malware in the meantime, sucker.

Facebook may not be to your liking, or even useful in your life, but at Winnipeg Lost Dog Alert in Winnipeg, MB Canada, we are a very important part of finding missing family pets (dogs). Facebook is our main “face” to the public.

We have had great success in our 2 years of running it, and are now a non-profit organization with 8,000 followers on Facebook that take the time to see if a dog is lost, and many get together and go out on searches to find the dog. Time is of the essence. A dog can be hit by a car, stolen, get totally lost, etc. For a LOT of people, dogs are like family to them.

We have a case of one dog named Dozer who was 80 lbs, and 51 days after being lost and the owners frantically looking every single day, withe help of Winnipeg Lost Dog Alert, Dozer was found weighing only 35 lbs and days away from dying. That was a little over a year ago and he his happy and healthy again.

So, Facebook may not work for you, but it it a huge part of the Dog Community here in Winnipeg, including many Dog Rescues and is a vital part of helping animals in the community.

And I know it is also a great way to disseminate information on a variety of subjects, including many many pages devoted to helping people, families, etc. in a great many areas.

It is FAR from a “I had pickels for lunch” social arena. Yes, it can be used frivolously, but it can also be a vital part of the community.

So, bash it all you want, if it isn’t right for you, then just don’t be a part of it. But calling it a useless and a waste of time is very self-indulging and at the very least, incorrect.